CCJ Student Leader Constantinos Rosca on Christmas

Christmas- Being reborn

The Christmas season for me as an Orthodox Christian is a new challenge every year. It is the challenge of whether I am prepared to be reborn, to experience my own renaissance together with the birth of Christ.

CCJ Scholar-In-Residence Dr Lindsay Simmonds on Hanukah

Hanukah – A tool for moral education

Rabbi Mason’s Sermon on Yom Kippur Day

Yom Kippur Day 5780

A few years ago in one of my Yom Kippur sermons, I told you the story of the rabbi who said he didn’t fast on Yom Kippur and the 9th of Av – you remember don’t you! Here it is:

Rabbi Mason’s Sermon on Kol Nidrei

I would like to share with you two of my ancestors, both Rabbis, who greatly inspired me.

Rabbi Mason’s Sermon on Rosh Hashana

THE IMPORTANCE OF CRYING

CCJ Student Leader Reflects on The Dialogue Perspectives Scholarship Programme

I recently attended the Autumn Seminar of the Dialogue Perspectives scholarship programme in Brandenburg (Havel), Germany, organised by the Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich Studienwerk (ELES). The programme was mainly for scholarship students at German universities, but for the first time they opened up the programme for participants from the UK, Luxembourg, Poland, Hungary and Sweden. Read more

CCJ Deputy Director Reflects on the 2019 Yad Vashem Seminar

Since returning from CCJ’s Yad Vashem study trip, I have often thought of a particular monument there: the Valley of the Communities, a 2.5 acre memorial dug out of the hillside, featuring the names of Jewish communities lost in the Holocaust. Warsaw, Lodz, Berlin, Kiev…the names of more than 500 communities are carved into the walls of the labyrinth-like site. Read more

Sukkot

This Sunday evening marks the start of the seven-day Jewish festival Sukkot. The Hebrew word Sukkot translates as ‘tabernacles’ or ‘booths’ and commemorates the 40-year period during which the Jewish people were wandering in the desert, living nomadically in frail huts[1]. Read more

A reflection on Yom Kippur

The High Holy Days and its process of teshuvah: returning or atonement is, of course, first and foremost relevant to the individual as (s)he reflects on the vagaries of the past year.  It is true there is much good in each one of us but we become poignantly aware of time and talent wasted, of being so much less than we know we might have been.

Yom Kippur and the Importance of Unity

Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), for many Jews, is the most important day in the Jewish calendar. It is embodied by prayer and fasting with the ultimate aim of repentance. Read more